They pay people to recycle in Philadelphia. RecycleBank pays households in RecycleBank dollars based on the amount they recycle each month. The more you recycle the more you earn. The recycle bucks are good at participating merchants, such as coffeeshops, Whole Foods, and RiteAid.

To quote from their material:

While many recycling programs have proven to be more expensive to run than they monetarily are worth, RecycleBank wins by driving higher utilization of trucks and manpower. The cost of running the program is far exceeded by the money saved in landfill fees: RecycleBank charges municipalities USD 24-30 a household, and guarantees clients they will save at least that amount in disposal fees as waste is diverted from landfills and incinerators. Meanwhile, residents are racing to fill their bins with recyclable paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, tin and aluminium: in test neighbourhoods, the amount recycled per household went from an average of 5 lbs to 35 lbs per week.

Is our city interested in this? Doesn’t seem to be. As Eric Lolis Elie has been pointing out in recent columns the Director of Sanitation won’t even talk about recycling. I sent an email to her about the Philly program in March. The response: Zilch, nada, silence.